I'm rapt that GT has found a new home but I'm still disappointed he is not in a Holden (at this stage). I think GT is still one of the best drivers in the category & as he has proven lately he can perform at the front when given a good car. As much as it hurts to see him not in a Holden for the first time in 18 years, it is rather fitting to see him finish his full-time career where it started. I reckon he drew the short-straw in the end at Walkinshaw as the reality is the whole team have underperformed for 5-6 years now & the issues run much deeper than anyone person. For me, GT's age was used only as an excuse as it was an easy way out. Courtney was slightly more marketable for the team (e.g. Monster) so he was retained despite having slightly poorer results lately. Having said this, I realise something had to change & reinvigorating the driver line-up at the same time as losing the HRT name makes a lot of sense. I'll continue to support Walkinshaw Racing in 2017 (perhaps with less passion than as HRT) & GT will certainly continue to garner my full support at GRM.

As for the car, at this stage Garry maintains (perhaps optimistically) they will be still be running the Volvo S60 body concedes they but may end up having to run with the Chevrolet power plant if Polestar don't agree to allow them to continue using their Yamaha engines. Apparently nothing was agreed upon during the court-held talks between GRM & Volvo. If the talks are not resolved by February, then the court case may not even start until well after the season has begun, leaving them in a potentially difficult position. Barry says the two COTF Holdens they are building are for their DVS team (the current DVS cars have been sold) but I think in reality they are part of GRM's fall-back position should the court-case go against them. Either way, Volvo S60 or Holden VF Commodore, I'm eager to see what GT can do with it as Scotty was able to regularly fight for wins & the championship.

robhealy86 wrote:Barry says the two COTF Holdens they are building are for their DVS team (the current DVS cars have been sold) but I think in reality they are part of GRM's fall-back position should the court-case go against them

I was under the impression that for a car to be eligible to be run in DVS they had to be run in the main game first. Has this rule changed recently?

Garry Rogers Motorsport has officially shelved plans to continue racing its Volvo S60s and will run a pair of Commodores for the 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship season.

Rogers had been embroiled in a court case with Volvo after the company decided to discontinue its association with the team after 2016.

While Speedcafe.com attempted to contact Rogers several times recently only to be told he could not afford the time to talk, the colourful team owner has since issued a lengthy statement clearing the air on the team’s plans.

GRM had entertained the possibility of running the Volvo bodies with Chevrolet engines although Rogers says that he was never comfortable with that option in any case.

With time ticking away, the team set about building two new Commodores in December with help from outside sources including Walkinshaw Racing who have supplied engines.

The statement from Garry Rogers in full:

The “off season” for GRM has been the busiest in our 50 plus years of racing. Following a three year agreement to race Volvo’s (2014-2016) our preference was to continue in the Volvo S60s for season 2017.

Obviously the news of Volvo’s withdrawal back in May was a complete surprise as it was contrary to the message we had been receiving in regards to their plans.

Following the factory withdrawal our plan was to still utilise the Volvo, which we had invested thousands of man hours and obviously a considerable financial sum to first design, develop, build and homologate, but the hurdle that we encountered was engine supply.

I know that there was talk of us potentially running a generic Supercar engine (Chev) in the Volvo S60, but this did not sit well with me.

Over the years I have competed in many different categories but the two main categories have been Touring Car Racing (Supercars) and Sports Sedans.

Having tried extremely hard to secure the Volvo V8 engines that had been developed and built in Sweden, which had absolutely no use except in Supercar racing, we ultimately failed.

The choice that I was left with was “do we run the Volvo chassis with a Chev engine?

I like to think that as much as I am getting on in years I am also a “modern thinker”, but also a traditionalist.

The traditionalist in me knew it was not the right thing to run a Chev engine in a Volvo chassis in a Touring Car category.

Having exhausted all potential avenues, including offering to buy the Volvo engines I felt as though I had two choices.

One was to say “well the last 50 odd years have been great, but it’s time to give it away”.

This thought barely entered my mind, as I truly love what I do and I admire and respect every one of my 34 employees.

The second option was to build two new cars. This decision was made in early December, and we have been absolutely flat out ever since.

I cannot emphasise how proud I am of all the girls and boys at GRM who changed holiday plans and other family events in an effort to complete a task that many would see as impossible.

The normal build time for a Supercar from the first chassis bars being welded to the time it would debut is approximately 16 weeks.

We had to build two brand new cars in less than 10 weeks!

We had to build two brand new cars in less than 10 weeks, while also completing the final build stages on the two new Development Series (DVS) cars we are preparing for the 2017 Dunlop Series.

In effect four new cars were being built inside 5 months, with no additions to our workforce!

This could only happen with the commitment, generosity, assistance and input of many people.

Of course the core of this are the GRM workers. We chose to build Commodores as we had raced them in the inaugural COTF season in 2013 and were familiar with them.

Following the 2013 season we had sold our two VF’s and many of the associated parts, moulds and accessories.

Tony Klein (Dragon Motorsport) owns the 2013 cars and much of the associated equipment.

Tony has been a great help in enabling us access to much of this equipment so as we can have these cars built in time for the test day in one month’s time. Walkinshaw have also assisted in engine supply.

This is not as simple as it seems as engines for Supercar racing are certainly not of the “off the shelf” variety.

Adrian Burgess quickly assembled his workforce to produce engines to cater for our needs, and again this would have resulted in people’s Christmas plans been disrupted.

The most important component apart from the human side is having the budget to do what was required. It would have been very easy for our sponsor group to look for other opportunities, but they stuck by me and for this I am enormously grateful.

One of the happiest people at GRM is Joey (Joe Sullivan – Transporter Driver) as Volvo Trucks have extended their commitment to our Team and we will travel to the races with pride in our Globetrotter FH16 700.

Obviously our relationship with Valvoline has been ongoing for more than 25 years and their continuing support is the cornerstone of our racing activities, but for Gary Koch and John McMellan of the Wilson Group and Brian Boyd from PAYCE who have only been associated with us for two years to have the faith to back me and my team in season 2017 gives us all at GRM enormous confidence.

robhealy86 wrote:I'm rapt that GT has found a new home but I'm still disappointed he is not in a Holden (at this stage). I think GT is still one of the best drivers in the category & as he has proven lately he can perform at the front when given a good car. As much as it hurts to see him not in a Holden for the first time in 18 years, it is rather fitting to see him finish his full-time career where it started. .

I am happy in that GT will remain in a Holden, camaroguy, as he has been his whole 18 year Supercars career. However I am also genuinely sad to see the Volvos disappear from the grid. It is not great loosing another make from the grid especially to more Holdens which already have a massively lopsided presence in the pit-lane. I think in the end, Garry realised it was probably too much of a risk to wait until mid-February to see what the result of the court case was (assuming Volvo & GRM couldn't come to an agreement). Had the court case gone in favour of Volvo, then GRM would have had 4 weeks to build new cars from scratch. As it was Garry's loyal staff had to change Christmas & Holiday plans to make sure the 4 new cars (2 DVS & 2 main-game) were finished in time. It seems to me it was decided before Tander was signed in mid-December as Garry says they started building the new main-game cars in early-December.